Tynan sings Limbaugh's Tune

So this morning as I was shuffling about corralling the coffee pot, a few eggs and some sausage in hopes of putting together some sort of decent breakfast, I was mistreated to a small-minded talker on the radio drone on and on about the wrong that was administered to radio's biggest talker, Rush Limbaugh, and the poor man's failed attempt to gain ownership of the St. Louis Rams.

This little wizard of the airways implied that because there were NFL owners whose views allegedly bent farther to the right than Limbaugh's, what happened to poor Rush was simply some kind of awful double standard. In fairness, in recent days, I've either heard or read this misguided nonsense from other folks beside the little talker.
Ugh.

Doggone it, I had every intention of dropping this thing altogether. Certainly enough has been said and written about it. Further, I realized that by typing away here, I was actually aiding and abetting Limbaugh's lost cause -- as was pointed out in of all places the Grill Room Thursday.

But with every bite I took, and contemplating the peril of ignoring my own advice, I decided it was worth making the effort, however misguided, to put an exclamation point on this hot, tired topic once and for all. Besides, what better way to burn off a good caffeine buzz?

Look, Limbaugh wasn't unceremoniously dropped from being considered an owner because of who he might be, he was dropped because of the caustic, hurtful things he's said over and over again through the years. It's that simple.

While I was eating my decent breakfast and listening to the little-minded droner, I came across this article in the New York Post.

Essentially, the story is about a famous Irish tenor named Ronan Tynan (we admit, we've never heard of the dude in the Grill Room). The story says that Tynan was dumped from singing his staple "God Bless America" before last night's playoff game between the Yankees and the Angels because he admitted to making an antisemitic crack to a Jewish woman who was looking to buy an apartment in his building on Thursday.

Here's how The Post reported it:

The alleged slur came while Dr. Gabrielle Gold-von Simson, an NYU Medical center pediatrician, was inspecting the building with a real estate agent and they bumped into the golden-throated team singer.

The agent joked to Tynan: "Don’t worry they are not Red Sox fans."

And for some reason Tynan responded by saying: "I don’t care about that, as long as they are not Jewish."

The burst of bigotry stunned Gold-von Simson, who said "Why is that?"

According to the team, Tynan said that a lot of "scary" Jewish ladies had been looking at the apartment before.

Up until Thursday, Tynan could well have been the biggest antisemite this side of David Duke, and it wouldn't have mattered. Up until Thursday, Tynan had managed to keep all that ugliness tucked inside his fat head and cold heart. He was just the Irish tenor with the beautiful voice.

The moment those nasty words came out of his mouth, and he admitted to them, everything changed. He was now the antisemitic Irish tenor with the beautiful voice.

Armed with that sad information, the Yankees felt bound to hold him and their reputation accountable, and they dumped him cold.

Was there really any other choice where Limbaugh and the NFL was concerned?